7 ms·
"Small-claims flash mob" - Car owner takes legal fight away from lawyers
- ajays 15y agoCan we use Small Claims to fight other injustices? How about going after companies that sell your email address? Edit: for the downvoters: it is a genuine question.
- dangrossman 15y ago> companies that sell your email address What monetary damages can you prove you suffered?
- ajays 15y agoNot monetary per se, but how about time wasted due to the spam? What if I control my own domain, and have to spend time fighting this spam?
- dangrossman 15y agoWe're talking about civil court here. Money is what you go to court to get. What do you want the judge to do if you win? He's handling traffic tickets and landlord disputes... then he gets to you. He's not going to try to make up some equation of how much your time pressing the delete button on your e-mail client is worth.
- electromagnetic 15y agoDepends where you are. Here in Ontario small claims court doesn't handle traffic tickets or landlord disputes. They handle things like suing your mechanic, or a business owner suing a deadbeat. However, they still don't have the time to process your claim for damages awarded for loss of time due to junk email. Sorry, but I can't sue for the actual junk mail I get that actually causes physical expenses like garbage disposal/recycling plus time. However a judge is going to be royally pissed if I'm suing for the disposal costs of junk mail (probably a maximum of $5 a year at the dump)
- kd0amg 15y agoSeen any of Bennett Haselton's stories on slashdot?
- hippich 15y agoFrom what I understood, small claims court are limited to monetary damages only. I.e. if you can not clearly show what monetary damage you suffered, there is no small claim case.
- waqf 15y agoAs I understand it, what usually happens to small-claims cases against large, well-funded corporations is that you win the first round, then the corporation appeals and suddenly you're in grown-up court and have to pay a lawyer.
- eli 15y agoAssuming the corporation is fueled by money, it will need to weigh the cost of waging an appeal versus the expected savings in overturning the lawsuit (which is still not guaranteed).
- waqf 15y agoYes. I was thinking of the case where if you win, thousands of people will file similar suits against the same company. In such a case, the company has more at stake than you do. It's more likely that it's not worth your while to get a lawyer to fight the appeal.
- lukeschlather 15y agoThat's the brilliant thing about the flash-mob approach. If the company has 50 cases to litigate, it may not matter if every individual is self-represented, since the company is going to have a very hard time fielding enough lawyers.
- radley 15y ago...or 50 non-lawyers since it's small claims.
- simcop2387 15y agoEspecially if they get flash-mobbed like she's calling for. Since they would need to show up at so many places to be able to even try to appeal. Some jurisdictions don't take kindly to not showing up to small claims court and then trying to appeal a default position against you.
- padobson 15y agoI'm for doing away with all other forms of civil court all together. Let's handle patents and copyrights and divorces this way too.
- jaggederest 15y agoThunderdome is the only real civil court methodology.
- rayiner 15y agoDivorces are already generally settled out of court. As for other forms of civil court... I'm curious to hear the justification for your claim.
- ajays 15y agoDivorces are already generally settled out of court. Not if they're contested.... and not if the state is not a "no fault" state. I went through divorce in NYS; let me tell you, it is hell. No house, no kids, and still the process went on for 18 months.
- rayiner 15y agoWow. I didn't even realize there were still states without no-fault divorce. Looks like just NYS.
- jaylevitt 15y agoGreat idea, but what happens when every major purchase includes a EULA that requires binding arbitration, like so many contracts already do?
- ebaysucks 15y agoMake sure to use an affordable arbitration institution. I am launching judge.me in a few days, offering $299 email arbitration service that is legally binding in 146 countries.
- jaylevitt 15y agoDon't most of those contracts specify the arbitrator, too? I know I've read many articles about forum-shopping by corporations; are they just relying on the consumer to not know which arbitration forums are truly neutral?
- ebaysucks 15y agoInstitutional arbitration often just mentions how the arbitrators will be appointed. Ad hoc arbitration (i.e. not using institutional rules) often specify the arbitrator(s).
- greenyoda 15y agoIf I walk into a car dealer, lay down my cash and refuse to sign their EULA, would they really refuse to accept my money? Is an industry that's hard-hit by the bad economy going to put additional impediments in the way of sales? Also, requiring this kind of EULA would be bad publicity for companies since it would emphasize to potential buyers that the seller is afraid of being sued for defective products. Companies that don't require such an agreement would be at a competitive advantage since they'd project an image of higher quality and more respect for the customer.
- waqf 15y agoMany consumer contracts in the U.S. (for example those for my credit card and my mobile phone) do require binding arbitration. Why doesn't your argument apply to them?
- nvk 15y agoThis is brilliant!
- ebaysucks 15y agoThe problem with litigation, even if affordable in the first round, is that it can be appealed and the judgment is only recognized and enforced in the jurisdiction of the court. Compare this with low cost arbitration: Internationally recognized, final, binding and a lot of procedural freedom. Disclosure: I am launching judge.me, a binding internet arbitration service that charges $299 fixed price and offers awards that are recognized and enforced by court systems in 146 countries.
- ars 15y agoWow, way to take a good thing and make it out as a bad thing. You want the ability to appeal. PS. It's cool that you are launching this, and if people want it more power to them and you, but the ability to appeal is important.
- ebaysucks 15y agoIt depends. The lady in this article wants to avoid the army of lawyers on the other side, so a quick resolution for her small claims conflict makes sense. I agree that public policy matters need the right to appeal.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- twakefield 15y agoDidn't Chris Dixon say, "Predicting the future of the Internet is easy: anything it hasn’t yet dramatically transformed, it will." Here's hoping you guys lead the charge on disrupting the legal system.
- grellas 15y agoIn California, if a defendant loses in small claims court, there is an automatic appeal right to have the case heard de novo by a judge of the Superior Court. "De novo" means the case is heard fresh and the small claims proceeding has no bearing on it whatever - in essence, you get to go through the same sort of expedited hearing procedure (no formal pleadings, no discovery, no formal rules of evidence, etc.) but in front of a real judge. The hearing is held, typically lasts no more than an hour, and (usually) an immediate decision is rendered and that is where it ends. Thus, even after this sort of appeal, a lay plaintiff can still have a potentially effective remedy for getting a quick decision. As I read this piece, however, I was most struck not so much by how the small claims remedy is particularly effective (in reality, this is a highly variable forum at best) but rather by what a joke the typical class action settlement can be. While that vehicle has occasionally proven effective in high profile cases, for the run-of-the-mill class action case you can often get a plaintiff's firm that is pretty much gaming the system to get a fee windfall for itself even as it puts a relatively low priority on the remedy it gets for the class of victims supposedly being represented. That is why remedies rarely take the form of significant cash payouts to members of the represented class and why the first instinct you have whenever you get one of those class notices is to simply throw it away rather than bothering to read all the fine print that might lead to your getting a $10 recovery or some such thing. It is interesting to see how enhanced connectivity in our modern era is threatening to disrupt the cozy sorts of settlements so achieved through this vehicle. Probably the biggest losers will be the plaintiffs' class-action lawyers themselves, who might wind up having their back-room settlements more easily rejected and be left actually having to work hard to get a real recovery for the victims in lieu of taking a quick and inadequate deal that benefits primarily the lawyers.
- quanticle 15y ago>The hearing is held, typically lasts no more than an hour, and (usually) an immediate decision is rendered and that is where it ends. Thus, even after this sort of appeal, a lay plaintiff can still have a potentially effective remedy for getting a quick decision. Doesn't that also apply to the defendant? If the plaintiff can use this procedure, Honda can too. What stops Honda from appealing all of these decisions and getting the vast majority of them thrown out?
- icefox 15y agoWhile the "small-claims flash mob" is interesting, I have a problem with the original problem. Buying a car isn't a small purchase (for most people) so you would think they would have done some small amount of research or just read the sticker on the car window. The article makes it out that every civic hybrid every sold counts in the lawsuit. If the car has been out for years pretending you don't know what the mpg that it will be getting is just grabbing for money. Or was there details left out of the article?
- elemeno 15y agoI think you missed the part of the article where the said that the batteries on some of the cars deteriorated at a faster rate than they should have done, leading the cars to use their (gasoline) engines more - thus reducing the fuel economy which was based on the car working as an effective hybrid.
- icefox 15y agodoh, saw the "Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times" at the bottom and thought it was the end or the article, didn't see the "Page 2".
- pothibo 15y agoI love this Heather Peters. She's one clever lady that just hacked the judiciary procedures in a novel way. Impressive EDIT: I see many other claims that could go through the small claims, one thing that does come to mind however, is it possible to go through small claims when you buy online and you don't get what you want? (Avenger controller for example)
- dedward 15y agoif there was fraud involved, of course. why not?
- The_Fox 15y ago> Honda sold about 200,000 of the hybrids over a six-year period, and because of resales, as many as 500,000 people are eligible to file claims against Honda. How could a second-hand buyer claim to have suffered an unexpected loss? Could not Honda (assuming they would bother responding to the small claims action) easily show that the fault was well known and second-hand buyers should have known they were getting a 30-mpg hybrid? Or was this something that only appeared after a number of years?
- illumin8 15y agoThe hybrid's battery failed earlier than expected. If Honda advertised the battery as lasting 10 years, and it failed after 5, a used buyer of a 3 year old car might have no idea it was about to fail.
- tzs 15y agoI'm curious. What happens if you sue a small California law firm in small claim court? The article says that in California small claims court, the company must be represented by a non-attorney employee. If the law firm consisted entirely of attorneys plus one secretary, would they really have to send the secretary? What if you sue a company and every employee is an attorney?